I’m in a middle seat. This is my third middle seat in four days.

You know, it’s not so terrible being in a center seat when your seat mates are polite and courteous. However, my flight this afternoon had me sitting next an armrest hog, who felt it necessary to repeatedly elbow me in the ribs to give him room to underline in his Bible. He was studying Galatians, I think. His Bible was in Spanish, so my normal powers of detection were inhibited.

He gave me a little card near the time we landed. It invited me to take some guy named Jesus into my heart. How did he know? Maybe it was my unwillingness to hang out into the aisle to give him more room.

After a moment, I thought to have some reply cards made up to point out the equal validity of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I probably won’t, though. Still, isn’t there quite a hateful message in proselytizing some seat mate whom you never took the effort to strike up a conversation?

Now, riding the middle out to San Francisco, I’m behind a guy who has punished his chair something fierce. He’s dropped into it several times with his full weight, and the entire seat frame has twisted and warped. Of course, you KNOW that he has banged the seat back against the tracks several times to get every millimeter out of the recline.

The person directly behind me has kicked, kneed and shoved my seat back so regularly that one wonders if they’re engaged in an aerobics program. I call the seat’s occupant a person, but quite frankly I don’t know that to be the case. It could be some dragon like monster wrestling to free itself from the confinement that some long dead wizard trapped it into.

Still, it’s cheap. I mean, astonishingly cheap. I guess that’s quite all right, because paying more for a better seat does not assure one of freedom from this bizarre dominating behavior. I considered paying to upgrade to a better seat, but then eyeballed the other 134 persons prepared to board with me.. They weren’t so desperate as to hang off if the wings, but it was rather disturbing.

This experience of course starts with “security”. Having been through security a few times in the last few days, I am convinced that the problem isn’t really with the TSA. The problem is with passengers who aren’t paying attention, aren’t prepared, are belligerent and generally making the experience more unpleasant than it need be.

This isn’t quite unique to air travel, of course. The same hostility, aggression and competitive inattention is present each day that I pilot my Buick to such exotic locales as the UPS store, or the university.

Is there any empirical data in the behavior of the masses over time? Or, is it just that there are so many more of us angling to get two ahead in the line.

One of the most memorable and startling “star trek” episodes had Jim Kirk kidnapped by a society so desperately overpopulated that they could no longer function. A blood born illness Kirk carried was their only solution. Occasionally, their deception failed and Kirk saw the heaving mobs of unhappy people – totally trapped and unable to exercise any choice.

Are the situations analogous?

I’ve previously belabored the point that auto dealers and auto manufacturers don’t do a terrific job at the internet – so, rather than do a great job with that, they’ve now begun to launch into hand held applications.

Lovely.

There are dealership applications, enthusiast apps, and manufacturer’s apps. I’m going to review the handful of manufacturer’s apps in this post. Dealership apps seem to be uniformly an opportunity to send push marketing to whatever sucker has downloaded them. Why someone would want their handheld to chirp “Come on down! We’re making CRAZY deals!!” is beyond me, but.. it’s not for me to say. Let me call out the Alex Rodriguez MB application, though, as being very snappy. I’ll talk about it a bit later.

As to the manufacturers themselves, there are two basic types available – telematics/roadside assistance and operating instructions. These apps are uniformly available for both iOS and for Android, but not for Win 7 mobile or other platforms.

Roadside assistance apps tend to be the realm of the premium brands – Audi, BMW, Volvo, Lexus and Mercedes all have them. They sometimes allow one to avoid the hassle of identifying one’s location to an operator. So messy. The Audi app allows you to call for road side assistance from the app without having to talk to a human. It transmits your information, your car’s VIN and the specific problem that you have selected to the road side assistance dispatch center, and has a very zippy feedback feature from the dispatcher – it tells you what service provider is responding and their ETA. The Mercedes Android app’s earnest focus is on where one parked their car, and on how to record the details of an accident (damned peasants!). No road side assistance connectivity is included. The Volvo app is a bit more creative, allowing for in app request for road side services, tracking trips for your Volvo (checking on errant husbands and runaway teens, I guess), and giving you a bit of GM’s functionality by being able to check the status of your doors, windows and trunk security from your handheld.

The BMW app is fairly well reviled. On its face (well, from the AppStore – the Android market listing for the Android app is scanty with the information but heavy on the negative reviews) it does everything that the other European apps do and a bit more – you can request road side assistance from the app and receive confirmation/ETA, secure theft recovery support, contact BMW customer relations (presumably to complain), and get “service details” which may be the local oil change special, or an OnStar like transmission of codes directly from your car, through your handheld and to BMW service. The BMW app’s latest iOS release MAY have cured a number of the persistent complaints about it, but they seem to have a number of data connectivity issues – an inability to register even a brand new BMW, and accessing the records related to a vehicle.

Its GUI is lovely – however, it seems not to work very well, as 1 star reviews far outweigh the 5 stars. Funny thing, Allstate Roadside Assistance provides the app and the roadside service – just as it does for Audi of North America. Go figure. The Audi GUI (especially for iOS) is equally lovely, and very much Audi and works with Audi products MY 2007 and newer – the most coverage of any of these apps. The BMW GUI is pretty much what you’d expect from an iOS application.

The Volvo GUI is quirky/Scandanavian and very nice IF you have the iOS version. The Android version looks pretty plain. Be aware that the app only works with 2012 MY Volvo that have the telematics installed.

Mercedes has deployed their customary visuals for the Android application, but their iOS application is a horse of a different color entirely.

For iOS, the Mercedes mbrace application is stunning. Gorgeous GUI, and extraordinary functionality. One can call roadside assistance from the app (no data transmission here – you have to talk to a US based, highly trained MB rep), call the mbrace customer center, the M-B concierge, and the M-B Financial Client Care Center. Mind, these are CALLS that the app places for you – I can only presume that they also transmit your vehicle/customer data while making the call, but their write-up doesn’t make that clear in any manner.

Just as with the GM applications, you can locate your car on a Bing map screen, lock or unlock the car and send map and destination data from your phone to your vehicle’s nav system. Pretty slick.

Pretty slick, that is, if you have a nearly brand new Mercedes model. The mbrace service is not available for MB products with MY earlier than 2009, and will only function fully with MB products from MY 2012 forward.

Most of the negative comments to the MB app are related to the lack of reverse functionality for owners of older model MBs. They seem quite bitter, in fact. I wonder why…

How about some upstarts? Lexus has an “Enform” mobile application for both Android and iOS. The Lexus Enform application hints at road side assistance, but the app descriptions (provided by Lexus) have no information about that, other than the screen shot. The primary purpose of the Enform application is bifurcated – for those who pay for the Enform service, one can send destinations to one’s vehicle, search for good spots to eat and be merry, and .. that’s about it. For those poor suckers who didn’t pay – it’s a dealer locator, and gives access to instructional videos for each “current Lexus model”. So helpful for the pre-owned buyer who didn’t get an owner’s manual.

The consumer reviews for the “Enform” application are very sour. “Missed opportunity” is the common thread.

So, who’s the winner here? Hold on to your chairs, it’s GM.

C’mon, you might be thinking – you’re biased. I’ve read your (my) posts for years and I’ve got a magic pony fantasy for GM.

Yeah, yeah. Allow me to point out that FoMoCo has no apps at all, except for car brochures. Acura – zip. Nissan/Infiniti? Nada.

GM, though, through their existing OnStar telematics strength gives one extraordinary control over one’s vehicle even when one isn’t near it. Remote start, fuel level check, tire pressure check, battery charge status, lock/unlock, check unlock status, oil life, fuel range remaining, recent and average MPG, current mileage, direct call for roadside assistance, and navigation data to send to the car OR to OnStar for their turn by turn directions without using the map display. All of the warning lights are explained – by light as displayed – order by picture, just like McDonald’s. Awesome stuff.

Holy cow, Batman! Oh, there’s more? Searchable owner’s manual, OnStar account information, OnStar rep direct contact, or favorite dealer direct contact, parking locator/meter time remaining AND app service scheduling.

Yowzah! That’s “yowzah” IF you own a 2011 (some models) or 2012 (most models) GM car. If you don’t, you need to find one of the embittered mbrace customers, and have them buy you a drink. Or two.

Of all of these apps, the two most frequently downloaded are the GM apps, far and away. The Lexus Enform app is a distant second. Oh, wait – did I forget someone?

Yeah, I did. My earnest goal is that ChryCo get their shit together. Clearly, they’re trying.

ChryCo has a GORGEOUS iPad app for the 200 and for the 300 – except that they’re stuck in 2011. (don’t get me started on these iPad apps. I’d need more vodka). They have the best, hands down, iPad and iOS app for the Fiat 500. Show that app to a friend who’s thinking of a small car and they’ll be sold on the spot.

They have apps for the Dodge Charger, the 300, 200, Fiat 500 – that are lovely to look at, and provide basic information on vehicle operating systems – what the warning lights mean, basics for operating the touch screens, and the like. It’s a truncated owner’s manual that has a few (helpful) videos embedded into it.

Mopar? Mopey? Please. We know you’re “imported from Detroit” (which really means something given that the Lancia Thema is nothing more than a Chrysler 300 with a REALLY nice grille) but. C’mon. I know some peeps in the Motor City who can do some apps. You have the tech in the cars now (if you want to drool a bit, check out the dealer accessory Mopar EVTS and then the VERY naughty MyGig lockpick which MAY be able to turn my new 300 into a hunter/killer stealth sub), so USE it.

Chrysler should be well able to deploy the identical services as does GM/OnStar in a handheld app. AND, their new visual presentation is killer (Remember? Detroit? Imported from?) How about ADDING some functionality to this app you haven’t deployed yet? Pretty please?

I planned to give Alex Rodriguez some app love tonight, but it’s time for me to hit the hay. More on that later!

Most cars these days come with two sound systems from the factory – the upper level system more likely as not being produced by part of the Harmon electronics empire. Even in very premium vehicles, the standard is no more than two.

Chrysler has taken a different path in the revised 300 series.

The company that brought us in-car record players and in car cassette player/recorders has brought us FOUR choices in their 300 series. This past week, I test “drove” all four at Spring CJD, ably assisted by Russ DeLoit.

The base sound system is pretty standard – six speakers – dash, front doors, rear package shelf. The base model stereo has a comprehensive touch screen, SD slot, CD player and satellite radio. I didn’t have a chance to interact with the smaller touch screen, and you may find it challenging to come across a 300 that is equipped with it. In a quick review of local inventory, there are a bunch that reflect such equipment with a window sticker notation that a $1000 price credit has been applied, as the 8.4″ screen was unavailable due to parts shortages. According to Chrysler’s website (which frequently conflicts with their printed materials), the 8.4 touch screen WITHOUT Navigation is standard in the 2012 300 and Limited. Thus, once they get their supply chain issues worked out, it’s 8.4 actual inches in the 300, baby.

The base sound system is nothing fancy, but includes all of the convenience features you could wish for. Sound quality is acceptable, and probably more than adequate for the large majority of 300 customers. Sound quality is agreeable enough, especially if talk radio is your thing. The base sound system is only available in the base model 300 for 2012.

The Limited, 300C and the 300C SRT8 add Bluetooth phone and music streaming, and boast of a 276 watt amplifier for the six “premium” speakers. The 300C adds Navigation and a mini-jack for external devices. Sound reproduction quality is agreeable for most everyone that will consider this car. The 8.4″ touch screen is very easy to manipulate, and voice activation is standard. The voice activation is “trainable”, meaning that the more you use it, the more effective it should get.

If you are anything of an audiophile, this system will perform reasonably well IF you leave the volume low. The 300 is a very quiet car, and background noise that tends to compete with music reproduction is quite minimal. However, if you have a 300 with this or the base stereo system, NEVER loan your car to anyone under the age of 30. If you do, you’ll have nothing but speakers that buzz and whine the next morning – 276 watts is enough to ruin six speakers in a couple of hours of hard (audio) driving.

Now, we get into the wacky world of audio options for the 300.

For 2012, all versions get the 8.4″ touch screen.
Limited gets Bluetooth included.
300C and higher get voice activation and navigation included.
Limited and higher get the 276 watt “premium” six speaker system.

Check out the brochure, and it looks quite clear that the two “level up” systems are available on all of the models. This seems not to be true if you check out Chrysler’s own website (note to ChryCo – whoever did your website is stuck in 2003, and needs to be flogged. Repeatedly.), it’s quite clear that only one “level up” system available on the Limited, the 300C and the SRT8, that being the “19 premium speaker group”.

For 2011, there was a $650 “Sound Group I” option, which consisted of a 506 watt amplifier, and Harman Kardon 7.1 surround, must as you would find in a competitive Buick LaCrosse. This has been pitched out in favor of two ultra-premium systems – Beats by Dr. Dre, and the aforementioned “19 premium speaker group”. These two premium systems head down incompatible and divergent forks in the audiophile road and are both very different to the ear.

The Beats by Dr. Dre system is “tuned” by Dr. Dre, hip hop recording giant. The back end is produced by Panasonic, and features a chunky 8″ subwoofer in the trunk, and a system tuned for hip hop/rap music. This system comes standard in the 300S package (whether V6 or V8) and is sucking up most of the marketing muscle for the 300 this year.

In practice, if you listen to hip hop/rap, you’ll be thrilled. The system is very powerful, and throbs with low toned sound. However, just as with the guy going by in the old Buick on chromed 22s, you can hear the distortion from a block away. Mid tones and high tones are muddy, meaning that they’re not clear. You know that they’re there, but they are not distinct sounds for your ear to experience. Crank it up beyond 50% power, and the system is LOUD and the distortion begins to take over the mid/high tones.

By the Chrysler 300 brochure, the Beats system is available on ALL models of the 300. According to their own website and other reliable sources, it is only available in the 300S models. If you like to cruise, while listening to the latest hip hop tracks – this is your car. If you prefer something exquisite and rewarding, skip the S with your 300, and grab a Limited, 300C, Luxury Series or SRT8 with the “19 premium speaker group”.

Curiously, your Chryco store probably doesn’t know the difference between this system and the “19 premium speaker group”. After all, “Beats by Dr. Dre” is being flogged like a stepchild in the marketing, and is something you can wrap your mind around. “19 premium speakers” sounds like just that – more expensive speakers. As in, $1,995.00 more expensive. The truth of the matter is far more complex and worth your time if you’re an audiophile.

For 2012, Harman Kardon cooked up the first, factory installed, 32V audio system for automotive installations. So what? Well, the entire back end of this system (which is to say, everything that isn’t your interface with the gorgeous and massive touch screen) is running at 32V and 900 watts. With 32 volts, the 900 watts doesn’t have to push as hard as it does in the Dr. Dre system, and the results are amazing.

If you’d like to learn more about Harman/Kardon’s GreenEdge technology, check out their own description of it here. Notice the part where it says “90% efficiency from amplifiers, up to 55% improvement”.

From the Chrysler Corporation’s SRT8 product announcement, we get this:

The new system uses GreenEdge® speaker and amplifier technology to offer superior sound quality and high Sound Pressure Level outputs with minimum energy consumption. GreenEdge amplifiers alone outperform traditional amplifier efficiency by up to 55 percent, representing a net efficiency of more than 90 percent in some cases. The speakers are tuned for maximum efficiency and perfectly matched to the amplifier output.

The system’s 19 GreenEdge high-efficiency speakers include:
Seven 3.5-inch Unity Coaxial mid-range speakers with seven integrated tweeters located in the front dash, rear doors and rear deck
Two 6 x 9-inch subwoofers located in the front doors
Two 6 x 9-inch subwoofers in the rear deck
One 10-inch subwoofer in the rear deck

One of Chrysler’s window stickers tells you this:

18 premium speakers with subwoofer
900 watt amplifier

Most people would see that on the option list, or on a window sticker and question why they needed it – especially when there’s a Beats by Dr. Dre system in the next car in line that doesn’t (apparently) cost more.

Trust me, if you love music, if your car is your haven to listen to your favorite music, if you love to hear sound that is indistinguishable from being orchestra center, you have to spend the $1,995.00 on this system.

Whereas the Beats by Dr. Dre system has a very pronounced front presence, the GreenTech system emanates from all around you quite smoothly. There is no noticeable sound stage; it’s just everywhere at once. Turn it up, and everything gets louder and remains completely smooth. Separation is excellent. Tone quality is the equivalent of being there. Vocals are crisp and delicious, and you will hear every note, every grace note and every nuance of your favorite music. The sound is robust, there is enormous depth that is not boomy. You’ll find that you don’t want to leave the front seat.

You can roust a 300 Limited with all this sound out of them for $33,490 before incentives if you skip memory seating, adaptive cruise control and the patio door that they call a panoramic sunroof. A 300C can roll into your driveway for $39,490 with all of this aural beauty.

I’ve recently test listened the Bang & Olufsen system in the 2012 A7; it was a bit nicer than the GreenTech installation for the 300, but not $4700 worth of nicer. For the money, this is, hands down, the best car stereo money can reasonably buy you.

The Dante’s Inferno Test has banished you to the Third Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Take the Dante’s Inferno Hell Test

Oh, my! It’s my first proof that I accomplish something in the wider world – employees at Conitnited cannot view my blog while at work – the site is blocked.

Perhaps I’ve been a bit too frank in speaking my thoughts? Wouldn’t be the first time; won’t be the last time.

Point of fact: I’m a car whore. Always have been, always will be. However, we are seeing fewer and fewer color choices on modern cars than ever before.

Especially when a car is fully loaded, the colors found on the dealer lots are more likely as not to be black outside and black inside.

I have wondered this for months. Why so few colors on the ground? I have noticed that dealers are even reluctant to special order a car in a color that’s not black/black. Why?

Salesmen will tell you that it’s because the black/black combination is what customers want. I think that the truth is more on the egg side than on the chicken side of the question.

I was talking with John, my car whore buddy who has worked in the retail auto industry for years and he told me that black/black is ordered because it can ALWAYS be dealer-traded to get something else. This keeps the franchisee from having to keep a car color that might not sell right away, and that other dealers will be reluctant to trade for. It’s the least risky choice.

Surrounded by black/black, dark gray and black, dark blue and black, silver and black, with the occasional white and black – the consumers make a choice. Do they pay full retail and wait for a color, or do they just accept a car that is indistinguishable from pavement? You know, the roads on which we drive.

Black is like damp asphalt at night.
Silver is like concrete on a dreary day – so is silver/gold and its permutations
Many whites are more like dry concrete on a sunny day than white
Dark grays are like wet pavement, pavement on a cloudy day or icy pavement

Black interiors? Here in the Southwest, where the summer sun can warm your car to a temperature exceeding 180 in just an hour? Black is insane. In casual testing, a guy at an Audi store measured a black/black car at over 40 degrees HOTTER inside than a white/beige car.

Black interior is also just .. invisible. There’s nothing there.

So – your choices on the lot are pavement with black. Or, wait and pay more. Is it that the customers are REQUESTING this combination, or is it more accurate to say that they’re ACCEPTING this combination?

Travel to any other country in the world, and the cars on the roads will remind you of a fresh bag of jelly beans – black is only used on cars in professional service.

Why are we colorless? Why do we accept this?

The last two weeks, I’ve been smack addicted to the show “Prison Break” courtesy of Netflix streaming. Netflix said that I would love it, and boy, howdy, was that an understatement.

Eight one episodes, fewer than fourteen days means I’ve been knocking these things down at a clip exceeding four a day. It was the video equivalent of “can’t put it down”.

As is said, all good things must come to an end, and last night I bade farewell to Michael Scofield, Lincoln Burroughs, Sara Tancredi, Fernando Sucre and the rest of the characters – the producers and writers wrapped the story up so beautifully that I was left sated. Satisfied with the conclusion, and only a bit sad that their characters wouldn’t continue to frolic about the Western Hemisphere in defiance of the predatory “Company”.

Wonderful show. Terrific acting. Thanks, everyone on that project for a memorable experience!

It has been called to my attention that my point about 9/11 is too obscure. Here’s the explanation that I just gave my friend:

• We responded to 9/11 disproportionately
• We radically revised our civil liberties
• Those revisions have been used to pursue “the drug war” in 98% of cases, and only 1% to pursue terrorism
• We attacked two countries that were neither of them involved in the attacks, at a cost of $10Trillion +
• We created an enormous bureaucracy that didn’t previously exist which does not serve its stated purpose
• We created an enormous transfer of wealth from taxpayers to private business for “security” equipment
• We have increased our debt by almost $12 trillion
• At the same time, we have refused to pay for first responders’ health care, early death, or disabilities
• We have refused to address any international issues that would reduce the hostility toward the United States – instead we have greatly exacerbated those issues
• We have departed much farther from our nation’s “principles” in response to 9/11 rather than embraced our principles
• The celebration at the World Trade Center site excluded representatives of first responders

The workup to the 9/11 orgy has been roiling my innards for about two weeks now – the sensationalism has intensified as we have approached the big Day. Here we are.

Only a handful of friends share my desire to avert my eyes from what to me is as disturbing as watching two people engage in public sex.

Paul Krugman writes in today’s New York Times:

Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?

Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. Te atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?

The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.

I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.

Sarcasm is always allowed

Do you know why we have a Labor Day?

Back in 1886, workers had to work whatever schedule their employers told them to work. Seven days, twelve hours a day – that was just fine. Then, as now, most legislators were there to support business interests and not voters.

For nearly two years, the largest unions in the United States organized a national strike to promote adoption of an eight hour work day. The national walkout kicked off on May 1, 1886 with parades and protests – 10,000 were in the streets of both Milwaukee and New York, 11,000 in Detroit but 80,000 marched down Michigan Avenue in Chicago in support of the strike – which had 50,000 workers in Chicago walk off the job. Across the country, at least 300,000 people struck for an eight hour work day.

Participating in the Chicago protests were the workers of the McCormick harvester plant who had already been locked out of their factory for three months. McCormick had hired 400 “scabs”, who were protected by police as they entered the plant, and hired private security to “rough up” the strikers the year before.

Riding the wave of the May Day nationwide protests and the unprecedented success of the national walkout, the McCormick workers were listening to one of their union leaders on May 3. The police were in notorious and robust presence and, after a few hours of non-violent speeches by their leaders, the strikers were ordered to disperse immediately. Corralled by the armed police officers, the crowd ejected a pipe bomb into the police line. One police officer was killed by the pipe bomb and another seven killed by gunfire, and the gunfire response of the Chicago police killed at least four workers and injured another 60.

The leaders of the strike gathering were arrested and convicted of murder. In 1887, most of them were hung until dead by the City.

Two years later, the AFL mounted another strike for the eight hour day, this time internationally.  On May 1, 1890, the “International Day of Labor” was celebrated around the world to great press attention.

Only four years after these events, the Pullman Company, one of the largest employers in the country, cut wages by 25% in response to another Wall Street financial panic. This should sound very familiar to you. Wealthy speculators suffer a crash threatening their incredible wealth and laborers pay the price.

Pullman, like the coal mining companies, had built a “company town” south of Chicago – literally, “Pullman, Illinois”, in which workers at the enormous Pullman works were required to live, shop and send their children to school – all for fees that were deducted from their wages.

With the 25% cut in wages, the Pullman Company refused to cut rents and store prices. A delegation of workers met with the Pullman Company and asked for a reduction, even a temporary one. No dice, said the largest employer in the United States.

May 10, 1894, the Pullman workers went out on strike in the Chicago area.

Although the strike was peaceful, it was ineffective. The Pullman company merely closed the plant the next day, and the workers still had to pay their rents and store bills to the Pullman Company.  The slowdown in production of rail cars was a mere annoyance in the general stream of commerce.

The workers were able to enlist the support of the American Railworkers Union – they being an affiliated local to the ARU. The ARU workers who switched trains began to refuse to switch Pullman cars or operate trains which contained Pullman cars until such time as Pullman agreed to participate in arbitration for its striking workers – no scorched earth policy, this.

Now, we’re talking! The work action gained the immediate attention of big money, which pushed first the Illinois Governor and then President Cleveland into action. First, the Postmaster General ordered that cars carrying US Mail were to be added to ALL trains in which Pullman cars were hauled. Using this veneer of Federal involvement, the US Government got an injunction prohibiting the ARU action. Federal troops were called in to force the ARU workers to handle trains . The ARU leaders were enjoined from communicating with their members, or the locals.

These Federal troops entered Chicago in spite of local and state officials requesting that they not. The Pullman company and its Wall Street overlords were too important to the Federal government.

The strikers, undoubtedly remembering that a peaceful gathering only a couple of years before had ended up with violent death and the hanging of their leadership, went berserk. Between July 4 and July 7, hundreds of rail cars were destroyed and then finally, seven buildings of the Columbian Exposition were put to the torch – presumably by strikers. A reading of “The Devil In the White City” gives one the impression that the spark was electrical rather than social, but at the time the strikers were blamed.

National Guardsmen fired into a crowd of strikers – killing a number of them. The US Marshals arrested the leadership of the ARU – and the strike fell apart. However, the display of the Federal government putting down strikers with guns and massed troops within walking distance of the world’s largest international exposition induced the President to declare that the United States would observe a national Labor Day – only six days after the strike ended.

So, Labor Day in the United States is really just window dressing – May 1 is recognized everywhere else in the world as the International Day of Labor. Labor leaders and government officials from around the world meet at Haymarket Square, where the 1888 protesters were shot down and hold ceremonies in honor of the nearly powerless, who had to suffer the loss of their lives in order to have a modicum of quality in their lives.

In the United States, it was determined that participating in Labor Day on May 1 would perhaps promote anger and resentment – rather than patriotic fervor. Thus, the first Monday in September.

The more things change…